This is the last Lake Resort Nurse post everybody.
It all started when I jokingly asked my pal Rebecca to send me Lake Resort Nurse if I won a contest she was having on her blog. And being a generous and good humored friend, she sent me the book even though I didn’t win her contest.
And so began my Wednesday Lake Resort Nurse posts.
Can you believe it’s been 15 chapters already?
Are you as amazed as me that it’s gone so quickly?
Or did you think it would never end - haha!
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In the past weeks we’ve identified so much with Reba and her small circle of friends: bitter Marie, Skip, Uncle Charlie, etc. We should take a moment to reflect on what, if anything, this romantic story about a nurse, who for the most part wasn’t very romantic and who did very little nursing, can teach us about life….. and stuff.
* We’ve learned that it is unreasonable to ask employees to work later than 5:00 pm, unless you want them to have one of “those” days.
* We’ve been educated that if our first impression of a stranger is that he is “stormy” and “authoritative” or has curiously erect shoulders, then he’s probably going to mess up our life somehow.
* We ladies have discovered that sometimes a gentleman can mistake us for a Buick convertible. And they don’t mean anything bad by that.
* We’ve realized that occasionally we can be with our significant other and not know if they are going to make love to us or fight with us. It’s ok. There is no shame in admitting this. We’ve all been there. But if it happens more often than occasionally, don’t be a Reba. Get some help.
* And we have bonded in the knowledge that, even when things aren’t going well for us, life isn’t so bad. I mean, if Arlene Hale refers to one closed mouth kiss as a “wild flame of passion”, you’ve just gotta feel kind of bad for her.
Poor dear.
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There have also been unanswered questions, too.
And here is where Arlene Hale has given us a glimpse of her genius.
Because it is her unanswered questions that truly encourage her readers to think beyond this Lake Resort. Beyond Windwood.
Questions such as:
* Where does Reba keep her whiskey?
* How is the population of this town going to survive
if no one ever gets to second base?
* Why did Arlene Hale write this novel? It barely talks about nursing and there’s hardly any romance. What was Arlene’s real passion?
$0.10 cokes? Erect shoulders?
We may never know.
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On a personal note, I have to say that I never expected the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response that my readers have had for Lake Resort Nurse. Every day I’ve received dozens of emails asking for “behind the scenes” tidbits about LRN.
The most popular question by far has been:
“Hey Jenn! What were those photo shoots like?
Was it all as glamorous as I imagine?”
And the answer to your question is “No, the photo shoots were not that glamorous.”
And they were made all the more un-glamorous when you take into consideration that the action figures of Reba and Marie wouldn’t stand up, so I often had to tape their feet to the table or lean them up against things.
This is the box where Reba and her friends resided between photo shoots.
See that big Ziplock bag to the right? That is a bag of misc. action figure weapons that Josh generously let me use if I needed them. There is also a package of minty lifesavers that I used as life preservers on the boat.
Now everything in that box smells minty. Very minty.
(Click to zoom.)
And here is a page of my storyboard for LRN.
Josh finds these quick sketches pretty funny.
I used this as a guide to set up the scenes for the photo shoots.
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And now for the contest!
Here is one last photo that I’ve taken of bitter Marie the receptionist,
our star Reba, and a random toy from our collection.
Notice that there aren’t any thought bubbles on this photo?
Well now it’s your turn, readers!
* Leave me a comment with your best suggested dialogue for this photo. *
It can be anything you like - you don’t even have to mention the pig if you don’t want to. And references to anything that’s happened in the book will get bonus points.
The most humorous suggestion will be declared the winner.
I will not be judging this contest, the winner will be chosen by a neutral third party who is familiar with the LRN story.
The winner will receive this box of oh-so-delicious Hello Panda treats.
Reba’s favorite!
